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Business ethics theories: Kantian Approach
Introductory Remarks
 Last week we’ve said that ethics is about right and wrong, good and bad habits,
behaviours and activities.
 And business ethics is about right and wrong, good and bad business
behaviour
 But how are we going to decide on good and bad, right and wrong behaviour,
action or decision as managers, businessman or investors?
 Immanuel Kant’s moral thoery has important unswers to this question.
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This week we are going to;
Learn Kant’s moral thoery
The strenths and weakness of the theory and
Apply this theory to business organizations
Immanuel Kant
 Kant was born in 1724 in Konigsberg in East Prussia.
 He is one of the most influential thinkers of the
western world.
 He has influenced our way of thinking in politics,
science and morality.
 Recently his moral theory is widely applied to business
ethics
Moral behaviour is a duty
 Kant argued that the highest good was the good will.
 It is the intention behind an action rather than its
consequences that make that action good.
 For example, for Kant if a merchant is honest so as to earn a
good reputation, these acts of being honest are not
genuinely moral. The merchant is only truly moral if he or
she is honest because being honest is right (one’s duty).
 Persons of good will do their duty because it is their duty
and for no other reason.
What are our duties?
 Kant distinguished between two kinds of duty: Hypothetical
Imperative and Categorical Imperative
 Sometimes we do something so than we may get something else.
 We go to work to earn money or study to earn good grades. If you
want good grades, you ought to study.
 Kant referred to this kind of duty as a hypothetical imperative
because it is of the form if you want to do x, do y.
 The duty to study is dependent on your desire for good grades.
Moral Duty: Categorical Imperatives
 Other duties are required with no ifs, ands or buts.
 Kant described these duties as categorical and referred
to the fundamental principle of ethics.
 He believed that reason provided the basis for the
categorical imperative, thus the categorical
imperatives of morality were requirements of reason.
What are the categorical imperatives or
main duties?
1. Act only on maxims which you can will to be universal
laws of nature.
2. Always treat the humanity in a person as an end, and
never as a means merely.
3. So act as if you were a member of an ideal kingdom of
ends in which you were both subject and sovereign at the
same time.
Act only on principles which you can will to be
universal laws of nature.
 The first duty/principle functions as a test to see if the
principles (maxims) upon which an action is based are
morally permissible.
 That is, one has to ask «what would happen if the principle
(maxim) of my action were a universal law (one that
everyone acted on)?»
 Would a world where everyone acted on that principle be
possible?
 To put it simply: What would happen if everyone acted like
I do? Would I like that kind of a world?
Let’s consider a case
 Suppose you desperately needed money. Should you
ask someone to lend you money with a promise to pay
the money back but with no intention of paying it
back? Do your extreme financial circumstances justify
a lying promise? To find out, Kant would require us to
universalize the maxim of this action: “It is morally
permissible for anyone in desperate financial
circumstances to make a lying promise, that is, to
promise to repay borrowed money with no intention of
doing so.” Would such a universalized maxim be
desirable? Kant (1990, p. 19) answers with a
resounding no.
How is this related to Business?
 The first principle suggests that the action can only be
undertaken if the principle on which the action is based
passes the test of the categorical imperative.
 A business manager who accepts Kantian morality would
ask for any given decision, does the principle on which the
decision is based pass the test of the categorical imperative,
that is, can it be willed universally without contradiction?
 If it can, then the decision would be morally permissible. If
it cannot, the action is morally forbidden.
Example: General Motors
 A favorite ploy of General Motors, especially with Jose
Lopez in charge, was to demand price reductions from
negotiated contracts with suppliers. In this way, General
Motors cut costs and contributed to its bottom line.
 Would such a tactic pass the test of the categorical
imperative?
 If a maxim that permitted contract breaking were
universalized, there could be no contracts (and contracts
would cease to exist). No one would enter into a contract if
he or she believed the other party had no intention of
honoring it.
 A universalized maxim that permitted contract breaking
would be self-defeating.
 Unless the principle of your action can be
universalized, to make an exception for yourself is
immoral.
 So, businesses should not make any exceptions for
themselves. They should make decisions that can be
universalized
 But isn’t this too idealistic? There is no such a
principles in the real world
Real life cases
 Maryland, a seafood outlet had a large sign on the wall
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saying, “We do not cash checks and here is why.”
Below the sign and nearly covering the entire wall were
photocopies of checks that had been returned with
“Returned: Insufficient Funds” stamped in large letters.
At least in this retail outlet, a threshold had been crossed.
A sufficiently large number of customers wrote bad checks
so that it was no longer possible to use checks in that retail
store.
Suppose a principle permitting writing checks without
sufficient funds in the bank to cover them was really
universalized.
There would be no institution of check writing.
Always treat the humanity in a person as an
end and never as a means merely.
 This is the second principle of morality
 What are the implications of this formulation of the
categorical imperative for business?
 First, it requires that people in a business relationship not
be used, i.e. they not be coerced or deceived.
 Second, it means that business organizations and business
practices should be arranged so that they contribute to the
development of human rational and moral capacities,
rather than inhibit the development of these capacities.
Some cases to consider
 American has been deeply concerned about the
massive layoffs created by the downsizing of
corporations in the early and mid-1990s.
 Are these layoffs immoral?
Information asymmetry
 Another concern about contemporary business
practice is the extent to which employees have very
limited knowledge about the affairs of the company.
 Wherever one side has information that it keeps from
other side, there is a severe temptation for abuse of
power and deception.
 A Kantian would look for ways to reduce the
information asymmetry between management and
employees.
Open book management: A
Kantian solution
 Open book management was developed by Jack Stack
at the Springfield Manufacturing Company.
 Stack and his company won a prestigious business
ethics award for the technique.
 Under open book management, all employees are
given all the financial information about the company
on a regular frequent basis.
 With complete information and the proper incentive,
employees behave responsibly without the necessity of
layers of supervision.
Meaningful Work from a Kantian
perpective
 A manager taking the Kantian approach to business
ethics would regard providing meaningful work as a
moral obligation.
 Some management attitudes and practices are more
conducive toward meeting this obligation than others.
 Kantian managers need to create a certain kind of
organization.
 A discussion of what a Kantian business firm would
look like leads directly to a discussion of the third
formulation of the categorical imperative.
Third principle
 You should act as if you were a member of an ideal kingdom of ends in which you were both
subject and sovereign at the same time
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Kantian approach to the organizational design of a business firm would endorse these principles:
The business firm should consider the interests of all the affected stakeholders in any decision it
makes.
The firm should have those affected by the firm’s rules and policies participate in the
determination of those rules and policies before they are implemented.
It should not be the case that, for all decisions, the interests of one stakeholder automatically take
priority.
When a situation arises where it appears that the interest of one set of stakeholders must be
subordinated to the interests of another set of stakeholders, that decision should not be made
solely on the grounds that there is a greater number of stakeholders in one group than in another.
No business rule or practice can be adopted which is inconsistent with the first two formulations
of the categorical imperative.
Every profit-making firm has a limited, but genuine, duty of beneficence.
Every business firm must establish procedures designed to ensure that relations among
stakeholders are governed by rules of justice.
Kantian approach to the organizational design of
a business firm would endorse these principles:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The business firm should consider the interests of all the affected
stakeholders in any decision it makes.
The firm should have those affected by the firm’s rules and policies
participate in the determination of those rules and policies before they are
implemented.
It should not be the case that, for all decisions, the interests of one
stakeholder automatically take priority.
When a situation arises where it appears that the interest of one set of
stakeholders must be subordinated to the interests of another set of
stakeholders, that decision should not be made solely on the grounds that
there is a greater number of stakeholders in one group than in another.
No business rule or practice can be adopted which is inconsistent with the
first two formulations of the categorical imperative.
Every profit-making firm has a limited, but genuine, duty of beneficence.
Every business firm must establish procedures designed to ensure that
relations among stakeholders are governed by rules of justice.
Theory X and Theory Y
 A manager who adopts the Kantian principles of a
moral firm must also look at human nature in a certain
way.
 Kantian manager should adopt theory Y. For it is
theory Y that views human beings as having the
dignity Kant thinks they deserve.
 Moreover, both theory X and theory Y have the
tendency to become self-fulfilling prophecies.
critique of authoritarian hierarchical
organizational structures.
 Kant’s ethics is that it acts as a moral critique of
authoritarian hierarchical organizational structures.
 Participation in some form by all the corporate
stakeholders, especially stockholders and employees.
 A Kantian would morally object to a hierarchical structure
that requires those lower down to carry out the orders of
those above, more or less without question.
 Kantian moral theory also requires worker participation;
indeed, it requires a vast democratization of the work
place.